SMS:Digital Elevation Maps

Digital Elevation Maps (DEMs) are regular structured grids of elevation values. Since the data is structured, it can be read, stored, displayed and utilized more efficiently than scattered datasets. These data sources are becoming more prevalent and can be obtained for topographic regions of the entire United States and several other area of the world from web sites such as Terraserver.

Unfortunately, most DEMs available online do not include bathymetric portions of the domain, which makes their use in SMS limited. New data bases are being developed, but due to the dynamic nature of bathymetric information, the feasibility of an extensive database is very slight.

It may be useful to convert scattered datasets into DEMs for faster processing inside of SMS.